tujiko noriko: kuro

Written and directed by Joji Koyama and Tujiko Noriko, Kuro tells the tale of Romi, a Japanese woman living in the suburbs of Paris with her paraplegic lover Milou. Tending to Milou by day and working in a karaoke bar by night, Romi reminisces about a time she and Milou once lived together in Japan with a mysterious ailing man named Mr. Ono. Weaving together personal history, anecdotes, and myths, her stories soon turn ominous. Composed and recorded during the editing of the film in Berlin, the Kuro OST by Tujiko Noriko (with contributions from Joji Koyama, Sam Britton, and Will Worsley), is a crucial and integral part of the film, acting not only as a glue to bind the layers of the film together, but along with the sonic palette of the film's sound design, evokes it's claustrophobic atmospheres and moments of haunting beauty. The music, which in the film is largely heard in tandem to the narrating voice of Tujiko Noriko (who also stars as Romi), is presented and arranged here as a separate piece in its own right. Written and produced by Tujiko Noriko. Photography by Joji Koyama. Mastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. "When we first decided to 'split' the film into what might be described as two parallel layers -- the narrated story and the visual story -- we found that it opened up an 'in-between' space, a space where what is heard and seen continually wrestle with one another. We envisaged that the true setting of the film would emerge from this friction, as something imagined and projected by the audience. After a few screenings we were struck by how some audience members would refer to scenes or events in the film that, for us, did not take place... We both thought of the music of Kuro as a score to this space in-between." --Joji Koyama "I tried to think of the pieces in abstract terms, like moods and atmospheres. In a way, the process was quite similar to how I usually make music, in the sense that I have images in my head. Of course, in this case there were actual images and a lot of them very close to me, but I didn't want to get overly conscious about them either -- I didn't want to get stuck by trying to be too specific." --Tujiko Noriko